"I love Gentoo, [but] I also hate it with a vengeance. I'm not talking small time peeves here, like the way Krispy Kremes icing gets all over your fingers (and by extension, clothes). I'm talking the type of frustration that is expressed in multitudes of expletives, some of which would make the profinsaurus cry. Why? Because, by definition and by nature, a source-based distribution is its own worst enemy."

I loved the idea of SourceMage, but couldn't quite figure it out at the time (0.9.4), it always kept asking the same configuration questions, I couldn't get it to just go with the current settings when rebuilding. It looked very powerful, more powerful than Gentoo, very fast too, but I couldn't quite get into it. Maybe when there's a bit more documentation on how to actually run & maintain your system I'd try again.

Hmm... The current version of Source Mage is 0.9.6 -- it's coming closer to the 1.0 release. :-)

My impression is that Source Mage remembers most of the configuration questions you've already answered. You really need to use the "-r" switch (like in "cast -r some_spell") if you want to reconfigure the application and answer all those questions again. Otherwise, sorcery will only ask you few questions, it will remember most of the answers you've already answered before. Also, all the changes you've made to the makefiles of specific applications will automatically be saved in /etc/sorcery/local/config_option_cache/ and all the successive upgrades of that program will automatically use the same makefile modifications.